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​Industrialist, fire brigade official trade charges

AURANGABAD: One of the directors of Agyle India Polymer Pvt Ltd, the synthetic rubber processing unit which had caught fire on Saturday causing losses to the tune of Rs 1.25 crore, has claimed the fire brigade team that reached the spot did not have water and had asked him to arrange for water tankers for dousing the fire. The fire brigade officers, however, said they were the ones who had actually arranged water from private water tankers.

The industrialist, Ajay Gavande, told TOI: "The fire brigade asked us to arrange water for dousing the flames that were emerging from the rubber raw material. We expressed our inability to do so since it was almost impossible for us to arrange water tankers at 3 am."

The Shendra MIDC fire station officer K G Sawant refuted the allegations and said that the delay in informing the fire brigade has caused damaged to company. He said, "We reached the spot at 2.35 am and realised that the material caught fire around 2 am. The security guard tried to douse the fire but failed. Then only he called on 101, which allegedly did not reply. Then he came to us running we rushed to the spot and started dousing the fire. Our each water cannon has a capacity of 4,500 litres and it is just a matter of minutes that this water gets utilized. So, we asked the company people if they could arrange additional water so that the fire is controlled at the earliest."

Sawant added, "When the company officials expressed their inability to arrange water we arranged it from private water tankers. We also informed the Cidco fire station and the police and asked them to get some water tankers. We also diverted to the spot a 12,000-litre capacity private water tanker, which was heading to another company in the MIDC. There was a lot of commotion and the company representative might not have heard things properly. So, he might have thought that we asked them to get water."

Sawant also said that by the time the security guard informed them about the fire, almost half of the shed was gutted.

Sawant added, "There were some barrels kept in the compound of the company. When we enquired what is stored in those barrels, initially the guard said it was water but when the fire started growing, he retracted and said the barrels contained oil."